The new Praxis Girder Carbon is their second carbon fiber mountain bike crankset, following the Lyft Carbon introduced at Sea Otter earlier this year. This one slots in just below the Lyft, being a bit heavier, but it introduces an entirely manufacturing process that helps them get to a very attractive price point.
Praxis’ Adam Haverstock provides a nice overview in this video, but there’s a lot more to the story. They’ve been working on a new design for a couple of years that’ll let them produce carbon fiber cranks “for the masses”. Meaning, very affordable. The Girder Carbon comes in at just $310, compared to the $500 Lyft cranks.
Available in 170mm and 175mm arm lengths. At 542g with a 32-tooth chainring, it’s incredibly competitive on both weight and price. Adam says they’re exploring patents on their manufacturing and construction process for these cranks, so he’s not willing to share details on it, but the result is impressive on paper.
Their alloy Girder M30 received an update to direct mount chainrings a few months back, and this one follows suit. It fits their Wave Tech direct-mount single chainrings, with all the usual tooth count options. It uses the SRAM-compatible 3-bolt attachment pattern, so most aftermarket rings should fit, but Praxis does use the wider axle spacing option. Meaning, double check that your rings were designed for SRAM’s wide BB spindle for best chainline. Praxis offers two versions of their rings, “A” for standard and “B” for Boost bikes. Available later this year.
2018 PRAXIS ZAYANTE X
For the road, their Zayante carbon crankset gets a complete makeover. The original has a 5-bolt, fixed arm spider that’s built into the crank arm. The new Zayante X uses a direct mount spider based on the same 3-bolt mounting pattern as their mountain bike cranks. The new spider has a 160/104 BCD pattern, which means all-new chainrings are coming along with it. Adam told us they’ll have every option currently available for the 5-bolt system offered for this new design, too. They chose this BCD combo because it lets them fit all of their offerings, from a 46/36 and 48/32 all the way up to 53/39, and everything in between. And any power meter spider compatible with SRAM’s direct mount will fit here, too.
Claimed weight is 610g for a complete crankset with double chainrings. For cyclocross, just sub in a 38, 40, or 42 tooth single chainring, which also uses their Wave Tech tooth pattern to prevent chain drops. Base price is $325, goes up based on chainring selection. Available this winter.
THREAD-FIT PRESSFIT BOTTOM BRACKETS UPDATED
Praxis’ threaded pressfit bottom brackets switch to an elastomer ring to give them a snugger fit, reduce any potential creaking, and treat your frame a little nicer. The prior design, shown on left, used an expanding wedge style that would lodge itself into the frame as you threaded it together. The idea is the same, but now it simply expands an elastomer as it’s snugged up, which does a better job of eliminating any noises and won’t dig into carbon fiber BB shells.
